(Derek Lyons) wrote in message ...
ess (phil hunt) wrote:

If they can be mass-produced for $10,000 each, then a $1 bn
procurement -- and the sort of countries we're talking about
typically sign bigger weapons contracts than that -- would buy
100,000 missiles.

Procuring the missiles is only the first step. Then you have to train
the crews, and store the missiles until needed, and distribute them
when needed. All three are non-trivial problems in and of themselves.
(And all four steps are vulnerable to disruption.)

Let's also not forget that the effort required to develop, test,
produce,
store, train troops for, and, eventually, deploy some massive amount
of
(Low Cost Cruise Missiles/Uninvented Mystery Munitions/Diesel
Subs/whatever)
has to be done in complete and total secrecy. It doesn't do you any
good to come up with your stuff if the first act of teh war is to bob
the depots holding it. Or, if you're favoring a surprise/preemptive
strike, the weapons are observed moving from the depots, thus alerting
the target. While there
may be some holes in U.S. Intel, out ability to find and follow that
sort of stuff us pretty good. (Before you go holding up Iraq as a
counterexample, please note that prior to 1990, there was very little
in-depth coverage of Iraq, so new patterns were hard to spot. They
also managed to score some coups by doing stuff that was unexpected,
such as pursuing the use of Calutrons, long obsolescent for reasons of
inefficiency, for Uranium enrichment. They can, for example, hide the
buildings, but they can't hide the electical generators or the
transmission lines, and it becomes a matter of following the leads.
Or, perhaps, one of the Bright Young Guys following the activity of
your factories in the Trade Publications notes an upswing in certain
activities.

So, to cut short a bit - If producing some massive amount of cheap
somethings
is even feasible, it won't do you a bit of good unless you can hide it
from
the watchful eyes of the NRO and the NSA. You can hide little stuff,
but not the sort of overwhelming swarm that's been postulated so far.

--
Pete Stickney